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Minor Fictional Human Characters in the Colonization Trilogy
This article is for minor human characters in the Colonization trilogy. For the list containing the non-human characters, see Minor Fictional Non-Human Characters in Worldwar This article lists the various minor fictional human characters who appear in the Colonization trilogy, a subseries of the overall Worldwar franchise. These characters are sometimes identified by name, but play at best a peripheral role in the series. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again. Aboriginal Hunter (Second Contact) In 1962, an Australian Aboriginal hunter made the mistake of hunting kangaroos too close to a newly created city of the Race during Fleetlord Atvar's visit there. Observing the hunter in action, Atvar demanded on a whim to meet with the man. While the hunter proved elusive at first, he was eventually caught and brought before Atvar. The Fleetlord attempted conversation with him, but the man refused to answer, swearing at him in both his own language and English. After a few fruitless attempts, Atvar ordered his release, and gave the man a replacement knife for the one he lost when taken into custody.Second Contact, pgs. 194-197. Kendall Auerbach (SC) Kendall Auerbach lived in Dallas, and rarely communicated with his brother Rance in Fort Worth.Second Contact, p. 68. Mae Auerbach (SC) Mae Auberbach, sister of Rance and Kendall, lived in Texarkana with her husband, a used-car dealer.Ibid., p. 68. The Beetles {Aftershocks) The Beetles were a popular British rock and roll quartet. The group's name came from their appearance, for which the group shaved their heads to look like members of the Race. David Goldfarb assessed the group's sound as being more akin to noise than music, and considered the group to be more popular than they deserved to be. Goldfarb's boss at the Saskatchewan River Widget Works, Hal Walsh, was a fan of the Beetles, and usually sang along to their music while in his office.Aftershocks, pgs. 362-363, HC. See also *The Beatles, on whom the Beetles are based. Ludwig Bieberback (Down to Earth) Ludwig Bieberback was the German ambassador to the Race in the early 1960s. In 1964, he met with Fleetlord Atvar to express his country's anger at the Race's scrutiny of Germany. As the Race had become aware of the German military buildup along the border with Poland, Atvar warned Bieberback that any attack on Poland would be met with force. While Bieberback denied any such planned attack, he did reassert Germany's right to defend itself. The meeting quickly bogged down into a series of mutual threats, and Bieberback took his leave.Down to Earth, pgs. 291-293. Atvar generally preferred Ambassador Bieberback to his predecessor, Joachim von Ribbentrop; Bieberback seemed to understand the world he lived in, and he could speak the Race's language.Ibid., pg. 291. Boleslaw (farmer) Pete Bragan (SC) Pete Bragan was a crew member in a Sherman tank during the Battle of Chicago. In a battle with a Lizard landcruiser, he lost an eye and his right foot. In 1962, he lived in Fort Worth, where he played poker at the American Legion hall. When he heard of modern trends like Race Mimicking, he declared that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.Second Contact, pgs. 66-68. Liz Brock (A) Liz Brock (d. 1965) was the Lewis and Clark's leading expert in electrolyzing ice found in the asteroid belt to produce oxygen and hydrogen which could be used for fuel and air supply aboard the vessel. She was diagnosed with liver cancer about which her crew could do nothing to help her except easing her pain and soon died in 1965.Aftershocks, pgs. 89-90. Casimir (Laborer) (SC, A) Casimir was a Polish laborer who headed a work-gang that was instrumental in building a landing area for shuttlecraft for Nesseref. This was hampered by Casimir's lack of proper skills in the Race's language.Second Contact, pgs. 459-461. Michel Casson (A) Michel Casson chaired a department at the University of Tours. He first joined their faculty shortly after recovering from his wound at the Battle of Verdun. He was extremely doubtful of Monique Dutourd, the professor of Roman history whom he'd been forced to hire by Senior Researcher Felless.Aftershocks, p. 411 HC. Mike Cohen (SC) Mike Cohen was a one-handed veteran of the Race Invasion of Tosev 3, living in Fort Worth, where he played poker at the American Legion hall, in 1962. Although Jewish, he was in the habit of spouting Christian oaths casually.Second Contact, p. 67. Franz Eberlein (SC) Franz Eberlein, an agent of the German Foreign Ministry, approved Felless' first entry into Nuremberg in 1962. He was the first wild Tosevite she had ever met.Second Contact, p. 204, PB. Eddie (SC) Eddie was a pitcher in a soft-ball league in 1962. He and Major Sam Yeager were teammates. After a game one day, the young pitcher asked what Yeager thought would happen when the Race's Colonization Fleet arrived. Yeager stated that humanity would be doing its best to make sure it wasn't the bloodiest day in Earth's history.Second Contact, pgs. 6-7, PB. Eva (SC) Eva was a friend of Claudia Drucker, and, like Claudia, obsessed with a popular brand of American fashion doll.Second Contact, p. 268. Reverend Fleischer (A) Reverend Fleischer was a Protestant clergyman in Los Angeles, California. He officiated at the wedding of Jonathan Yeager and Karen Culpepper in 1966.Aftershocks, pgs. 587-588, PB. Frederick (DtE) Frederick (d. 1965) was a ginger-smuggler in Cape Town, South Africa. He was a black man who had benefited from the Race's abolition of color-based discrimination in the 1940s. Rance Auerbach and Penny Summers joined him, against Auerbach's better judgment, to sell their illegal wares to Gorppet, an addicted infantrymale of the Race, in exchange for universally-negotiable gold. During the rendezvous in a public park at night, they were set upon by Race police, and a firefight erupted. Frederick attempted to betray his partners in crime but was shot dead by Summers, who escaped with Auerbach and the gold. Gorppet escaped with the ginger. The escape of the main guilty parties was a source of severe frustration for the Race. Calvin Herter (SC) Calvin Herter was a reporter for the New York Times. In 1962, he interviewed the exiled Shiplord Straha, then living in California, for Straha's guess on which not-empire was behind the 1962 Attack on the Race's Colonization Fleet. Straha said the United States, for the reason that the US could hurt the Race easily because few people would expect it to try. When Herter offered to print this accusation, Straha was shocked. Herter then had to explain to Straha the concept of a free press. After a debate about the relative merits of different forms of government, Straha said he did not really believe the US had attacked the Colonization Fleet, but was placing a proverbial biting flea on Herter's tailstump, i.e. pulling his leg. Herter then said it could have been a deadly practical joke which would have sparked a US-Race war. After a brief discussion of the Race's Mating Season, Herter proclaimed Straha so good at evasion that he might be a proper Tosevite - which Straha took as an insult.Second Contact, pgs. 124-129, PB. Ilse (SC) Ilse was a girl on whom Heinrich Drucker was sweet in 1962, much to the amusement of his sister Claudia.Second Contact, p. 265-266. Jasper (SC) Jasper was Rance Auerbach's landlord in Fort Worth. When Auerbach killed two home invaders in his apartment, resulting in a bloody mess, Jasper reminded Auerbach that he was responsible for the cleaning bill.Second Contact, p. 304. Joe (SC) Joe was a radio operator at the United States Air and Space Force listening post at Hot Springs. He had an amiable chatting acquaintance with Reich Rocket Force orbiting pilot Johannes Drucker.Second Contact, p. 36. Julius (SC) Julius (b. c. 1918) was an African-American farmer in Florida when the Race Invasion of Tosev 3 tore through the state, killing his livestock and rendering the farm uninhabitable. The Race occupied the state and began recruiting collaborators who had been disenchanted with the racism that was common in the old American system. Julius joined the Race's collaborationist army. The Race was eventually defeated, and Julius surrendered. While he was making the gesture of surrender, a U.S. Army soldier, expecting treachery, shot him in the leg, leaving a permanent limp. In the 1960s, Julius worked as a bartender at the United States Air and Space Force officers club in Kitty Hawk. He told Captain Glen Johnson that African-Americans' lot nowadays was better than it used to be, but not as good as it ought to be.Second Contact, pgs. 224-228. Karl (A) Karl was a former soldier of the ''Wehrmacht'' turned laborer in Nuremberg. Out of hospitality, he gave a moderate amount of banknotes for Johannes Drucker on his journey to Greifswald. Gustav Kluge (A) Gustav Kluge was a German farmer. Following the Race-German War of 1965, people kidnapped from Poland during the fighting were brought to Kluge's farm and forced to labor there. Mordechai Anielewicz found his missing family on this farm, which reminded him of the slave plantation in the movie Gone with the Wind. He rescued his family and barely restrained himself from killing Kluge. Ku Cheng-Lun (A) Ku Cheng-Lun was a resident of Peking, arrested by the People's Liberation Army in 1966, for collaboration with the Race as a clerk during their rule of the city. Having seen the fate of Ma Hai-Teh, he prepared a plausible defense that he had deliberately been a bad clerk, making mistakes on purpose to sabotage efficiency. He showed a written reprimand for slacking-off to Judge Liu Han, who was skeptical of its veracity, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. She sentenced him not to summary death by firing squad, but to hard labor. Both knew that this was a probable death sentence, but Ku was relieved to have gained a new lease on life, however fleeting it would prove to be.Aftershocks, pgs. 456-457. Ma Hai-Teh (A) Ma Hai-Teh (d. 1966) worked as a clerk for the Race in Peking. When Peking was taken by the People's Liberation Army, Ma was put before a military tribunal as a collaborator. He confessed that he did clerical work, moving school records from one envelope to another, naively believing that this harmless activity would not merit death in his captors' eyes. However, the PLA regarded any collaboration with the Race as a capital crime, regardless of degree. Judge Liu Han passed his sentence, which was summarily carried out by firing squad.Aftershocks, p. 456, HC. Pedro Magallanes (SC) Pedro Magallanes was an Argentinian student in Professor Shpaaka's class at Russie Medical College, along with Reuven Russie. When Shpaaka led the class in a discussion on the ginger-induced mating craze among the Race, Magallanes asked if the Rabotevs and Hallessi ever exhibited similar behaviour. Shpaaka replied that they didn't, unless an individual had a severe hormonal imbalance akin to the current situation.Second Contact, p. 317, pb. Mayor of Los Angeles (SC) The Mayor of Los Angeles attended a reception for Liu Han and Liu Mei, the delegates from the Chinese Reds. After Liu Mei made a speech explaining her people's plight, the Mayor made a speech which simply repeated all of her points in so many more words. Major Sam Yeager and Colonel Eli Hollins found the Mayor's speech torturous to listen to, and opined that, if the audience had been prisoners of war, the speech would have violated the Geneva Conventions. When the Mayor finished his speech and left the podium, he got a heartfelt round of applause. He was delighted, as he mistakenly believed that people were cheering the speech itself, rather than the fact that it was over.Second Contact, pgs. 360-361. Literary comment It is possible that this is an unnamed historical figure, to be identified by subtle clues. Jack McDowell (SC-DtE) Sergeant Jack McDowell (b. c. 1919) served under Flight Lieutenant David Goldfarb at the RAF's listening post in Belfast. The Scottish veteran was a considerate friend, and did not exhibit the anti-Semitism that was distressingly prevalent in 1960s Britain. He exhibited a somewhat unreasonable paranoia that the Race would soon move to conquer the Earth nations that still retained independence. Literary comment For part of Second Contact, this character's name is changed to Jack McKinnon. Charlie McMillan (SC) Charlie McMillan was an officer of the Fort Worth police department. After Rance Auerbach killed two home invaders in his apartment, McMillan inspected the scene and determined that Auerbach had acted in self defense, and probably deserved commendation for ridding Texas of two menaces.Second Contact, p. 303-304. Ibrahim Nuqrashi (DtE) Ibrahim Nuqrashi was a student at Russie Medical College in Jerusalem. He found that city, as turbulent as it was, to be less violent and chaotic than his native Baghdad.Down to Earth, p. 27, HC. When the Race made Emperor-worship a prerequisite for continuing at Russie, Nuqrashi dropped out. He said that his father would kill him for not completing his studies, but would torture and kill him if he committed idolatry.Ibid., p. 219-200, HC. Danny Perez (SC) Danny Perez was a radioman of the Lewis and Clark. He was part of the 1963 mission to the asteroid belt and was cynical over the possibility of never returning to Earth. Like the rest of the lower ranking crew members of the Lewis and Clark, Perez did not know the true purpose of the vessel.Second Contact Pyotr Maksimovich (SC-A) Pyotr Maksimovich served as General Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov's personal secretary in the Kremlin for years, dutifully facilitating the day-to-day business of the Soviet Union. He scheduled the leader's meetings with envoys from the Race, the [[Germany (Worldwar)|Greater German Reich]], and the United States, and Soviet officials such as NKVD head Lavrenty Beria, Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov, and Foreign Commissar Andrei Gromyko, among other worthies and not-so-worthies. In 1966, his cousin Mikhail Sergeyevich, who was on diplomatic duty in the USA, sent him a furry, which became the talk of the USSR's higher-ups in short order. Literary comment This character's surname is never revealed. It is possible that this is an obscure historical relative of Gorbachev. Miriam Rosen (DtE, A) Miriam Rosen was the chief medical officer of the American spaceship Lewis and Clark. Glen Johnson found her attractive.Down to Earth, pgs. 134-135, PB. Rosen's duties included taking care of the terminally-ill Liz Brock.Aftershocks, pg. 90, PB. She was of the opinion that President Earl Warren would have been impeached and convicted of his attack on the Race's Colonization Fleet if the truth had been learned in a different way.Ibid., pgs. 296-299. Rozenzweig Benjamin Rubin (A) Benjamin Rubin was the leader of a group of nine Jewish partisans in 1965.Aftershocks, pg. 560. In the immediate aftermath of the Race-German War of 1965, Rubin and his group stole the explosive-metal bomb Mordechai Anielewicz had kept in Lodz, Poland since 1944. The group was determined to inflict further harm on the Germans in retaliation for Nazi persecution of the Jews.Ibid., pg. 508. They had planned to detonate it in Dresden, but their truck kept breaking down,Ibid., pg. 561. and so wound up in the small town of Kanth.Ibid., pg. 507. When Anielewicz attempted to negotiate at the request of the Race, the group took him hostage. The Race sent Gorppet as a second negotiator, only to have him meet the same fate. Rubin told Gorppet that he was willing to die like the defenders of Masada in the first century. After a period of time, Rubin met with Anielewicz, who tried to convince him that destroying Kanth would not achieve the group's goals; it was too small a town. Anielewicz also tried to make Rubin see that the Germans were still in a position to hurt the Jews, despite their badly beaten state.Ibid., pgs. 560-562 Rubin ordered the bomb detonated. However, Anielewicz' people had not been maintaining it as well as they thought. The bomb did not detonate, and Rubin and his men surrendered themselves to the Race in exchange for safe passage.Ibid., pgs. 562-565. Greg Ruzicka (A) Greg Ruzicka (b. ca. 1944) was a childhood friend of Jonathan Yeager. The two met in the fourth grade and remained friends throughout their adolescence and into their adulthood. Ruzicka was best man at Yeager's wedding to Karen Culpepper. Like Yeager, Ruzicka practiced Race Mimicking. He also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day despite having been raised at a time when serious health risks associated with the habit were becoming known.Aftershocks, pg. 588, PB. Sadorowicz (A) Mr. Sadorowicz was a patient of Reuven Russie. He was diagnosed with lung disease likely caused by smoking. Sadorowicz did not take heed of Reuven's warnings on the dangers of tobacco and even refused to have an X-ray check recommended by Reuven, who remained puzzled by Sadorowicz's stubbornness and his reasons for seeing him. Bahadur Singh (SC) Bahadur Singh was an Indian medical student in Professor Shpaaka's class at Russie Medical College. His turban marked him as a Sikh. He confided to Reuven Russie his hope that ginger would drive the Race to distraction long enough for India to free itself. Reuven replied "It could be so," but privately doubted this. Reuven's attitude toward the matter was coloured by his belief that his country, Palestine, was better off with the Lizards than without them.Second Contact, p. 318, pb. Anna Suslova (SC) Anna Suslova was a Russian student at Russie Medical College. She was so thick-headed that Reuven Russie believed she'd had "help" to get into the school. When Professor Shpaaka asked for suggestions on how the Race could deal with the ginger crisis, Suslova implied, the Race should make ginger use punishable by death. Shpaaka replied the Race preferred not to spill the blood of its own kind. Suslova said, her country had always killed people first and worried about consequences afterward. Without this ruthlessness, the SSSR would have been conquered during the Race Invasion of Tosev 3. Shpaaka pointed out that many Russians would be happier under Race rule than Soviet rule, which angered the Russian girl when it finally got through to her that this was probably true. Reuven, whose country of Palestine was a perfect example of what Shpaaka proposed, felt no need to say anything.Second Contact, pgs. 318-319. Tao Sheng-Ming (SC; A) Tao Sheng-Ming was a young Race mimicker from Peking who encountered Liu Han. Although he was obnoxious and arrogant, he seemed quite intelligent. Liu hoped that Tao could be very valuable if he discovered the proper ideology, and directed him to Old Lin's office in Ma's brocade shop.Second Contact, p. 34-35, pb. Charlie Thornton (SC) Charlie Thornton was a World War I veteran who lived in Fort Worth in 1962. He was a poker ace at the American Legion hall.Second Contact, p. 66. Lucy Vegetti (A) Lucy Vegetti was a geologist aboard the Lewis and Clark.Aftershocks, pg. 162. She befriended and had a brief sexual relationship with Glen Johnson.Ibid., pgs. 162-164. Victor Watkins (A) Victor Watkins was sheriff of Desert Center, California. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota but had lived in Desert Center for more than 30 years. He escorted Sam Yeager to observe invasive alien plants and animals brought by the Race near Desert Center. Watkins was not too keen on the alien ecosystem that was damaging Earth and hoped for a resolution in eliminating them. Gus Wilhelm (SC) Captain Gus Wilhelm (b. c. 1926) first enlisted in the U.S. Army at the very end of the Race Invasion of Tosev 3 and did not see any fighting. In the 1960s, he was the pilot of the Osprey, a United States Air and Space Force vessel. He warned Captain Glen Johnson of the Peregrine that Johnson's obsessive need to find out more information about the space station would only lead to trouble. Frankie Wong (SC) Frankie Wong (d. 1963) was an American lawyer who practiced in Los Angeles, California. Wong was a second-generation American citizen; his grandfather had been a Chinese peasant who left his home in Guangdong Province as a young man in the late 19th century and moved to the United States to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. Wong was fluent in Chinese, though he was more comfortable with his grandfather's Cantonese dialect than in the more common Mandarin.Second Contact, pgs. 247-249. In 1963, Wong was hired by the United States to assist Liu Han, the Chinese Communist Party's representative to the United States, by interpreting for her and driving her and her daughter, Liu Mei.Ibid., pg. 252. He was with the Lius, Sam Yeager, Straha, and Straha's bodyguard Gordon, when they were fired upon by an assassin. Which of the group he was targeting was not clear. Wong was the only one in the group to be hit. He died immediately, leaving behind a wife and children.Ibid., pgs. 398-399. Vicki Yamagata (A) Vicki Yamagata was Karen Culpepper's maid of honor at her wedding to Jonathan Yeager. Vicki and Karen were old, old friends; they had known each other even longer than had Jonathan and his best man, Greg Ruzicka.Aftershocks, pg. 588, PB. References *Colonization Human *Colonization Human